Gaddafi interpreter 'collapsed during UN speech'

(Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Jeff Zelevansky/Getty)

Ali Treki, former Libyan Foreign Minister, shows the strain as Colonel Gaddafi gets into the swing of things

Muammar Gaddafi's personal translator broke down towards the end of the Libyan leader's meandering 94-minute UN speech and had to be rescued by a UN Arabic speaker.
The Libyan translator matched the "Brother Leader of the Revolution" word-for-word for 90 minutes before collapsing from exhaustion, just after Mr Gaddafi denounced the popular Ottawa Treaty outlawing landmines.
"A mine is a defensive weapon. If you put it there, you come to it. I put it along the border of my country. If you want to invade me then you may be killed," Mr Gaddafi said.
The translator broke down as the man once denounced by Ronald Reagan as the "mad man" of the desert embarked on a tirade about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an explanation of his call for a single-state solution called "Isratine"